With more than two million page views and more than 4,500 items, this blog provides news and commentary on public policy, business and economic issues related to the $3 billion California stem cell agency, officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM). David Jensen, a retired California newsman, has published this blog since January 2005. His email address is djensen@californiastemcellreport.com.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Here is the full text of the remarks from John M. Simpson made by email for the overview piece today on the California stem cell agency.

"It’s a slick (annual) report that allows CIRM to put its best forward as it
its leadership tries to make a case for future funding, quite possibly
another bond issue. I’d be interested in knowing how much the annual
report cost to produce and how many copies have been printed.

"CIRM’s
fundamental problem is that supporters of Prop. 71 wildly oversold what
passage of the measure would deliver. Voters were led to believe that
miraculous cures were just around the corner if only the proposition
passed.

"CIRM-funded research has made important contributions to science, but has yet to deliver what voters were promised.

"Agency
management has improved under the Thomas-Mills regime and the most
blatant conflicts of interest were mitigated after the scathing
Institute of Medicine report.

"The CIRM annual
report cites the number of 'inventions' CIRM has funded — more than 180.
What share of royalties have taxpayers received as a result?
Anticipated revenue from CIRM-funded inventions was a big selling point
for Prop. 71.

"No doubt CIRM-funded research has
made some important contributions to scientific knowledge. The results,
however, in no way justify another bond issue to fund the agency.

"If
CIRM continues after the current funds run out, it should be financed
like any other state agency— out of the states’s operating budget
approved by the Legislature on annual basis. CIRM’s operating budget
could also be augmented by private contributions."

About Me

The California Stem Cell Report is the only nongovernmental website devoted solely to the $3 billion California stem cell agency. The report is published by David Jensen, who worked for 22 years for The Sacramento Bee in a variety of editing positions, including executive business editor and special projects editor. He was the primary editor on the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "The Monkey Wars" by Deborah Blum, which dealt with opposition to research on primates. Jensen served as a press aide in the 1974 campaign and first administration of Gov. Jerry Brown. (Time served: two years and one week.) He writes from his sailboat on the west coast of Mexico with occasional visits to land. Jensen began writing about the stem cell agency in 2005, noting that it is an unprecedented effort that uniquely combines big science, big business, big academia, big politics, religion, ethics and morality as well as life and death. The California Stem Cell Report has been identified as one of the best stem cell sites on the Internet. Its readership includes the media (both mainstream and science), a wide range of academic/research institutions globally, the NIH and California policy makers.